Goonj (means an echo) www.goonj.org is an 18 years old award winning social enterprise working across India. Founded by Anshu Gupta in 1999, with a mission to highlight clothing as an ignored basic need of many. Under his leadership Goonj is turning the menace of growing urban waste into a tool to trigger large scale rural development work. It is the genesis of a parallel trash based economy by creating a barter between two new currencies; labor of the village communities and surplus urban material.
Goonj has offices in 12 states while it reaches remote parts of 22 states in India with more than 250 grassroots organizations to address the most basic needs of mankind.
Dealing with more than 3000 tons of urban material annually Goonj reaches this material to rural communities with dignity, as they take up large scale development work on water, infrastructure, education, agriculture, sanitation, womens health etc. Goonj has also been working extensively on disaster relief and rehabilitation across the country, bringing some systemic changes with its innovative ideas.